Absence
by Griever5
Summary: Set in the far well not really future. CP9 is looking for a replacement.


The body hit the ground with a wet thud.

Lucci eyed it in the way someone would look at the most disgusting bit of brown sticky stuff found on the soles of one's shoes.

Califa (watching safely from afar) pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Kudamori was almost cowering at the sight. Hattori cooed, flapping off Blueno's shoulder to return to his master.

Jyabura snorted. "That Lucci."

Califa hummed somewhere in the back of her throat, and on cue, they could hear the Director's screech all the way across the courtyard.

"That's the third agent you have murdered!" Unlike Spandam, this Director believed in the indestructible shield of authority that his rank demanded, and held no qualms with yelling at the strongest CP9 agent.

"He's not strong enough."

"He was specially recommended! Just like all the others! Prodigies of their classes, sent to fill the honoured position of a CP9 agent!!"

Lucci despised how each sentence was punctured by an exclamation mark.

The Director continued to shriek. "It is no easy task, trying to find a replacement -!"

"There is no need for a replacement."

The Director tried to pin Lucci under a glare, failed, and settled for glaring at Hattori instead (though also with little success; Hattori _was_ Lucci's pet after all). "Are you trying to say that you disapprove of the Council's decision?"

Hattori ruffled his feathers quietly.

The Director pondered on a thought, turning it over a couple of times in his mind to let it get a nice rich roasted colour. "The Council was the one who decided to put Kaku under your supervisor in the first place! The person who they have chosen to replace him should be more than enough! In fact, even better! Seeing as how Kaku fail-"

The Director stuttered to a stop. He tried to fix his gaze on the ground, wheeling around to seek support from the other CP9 agents but they had wisely taken their leave.

"There is no need for a replacement." Lucci repeated calmly, and the Director nodded frantically.

"Of course! Of course! Why should there be? Ha ha ha ha…!"

Lucci blinked, and the Director stumbled back. "W-Well! Don't you have things to do! Shoo!" He flapped his arms.

Lucci didn't need to slam the door for the Director to jump and nearly wet himself when the door clicked shut.

mmm

The next day saw another agent arriving at Lucci's office and announcing his position as the new CP9 agent. Lucci offered a test of his skills, and overeager, the new agent agreed with enthusiasm.

Only to end up a fresh corpse for the morgue.

Lucci hadn't finished it off quickly like he had the others. First, he invited the Director to watch the sparring match.

Then he told this agent his role as a Cipher Pol agent while plunging his fingers into the thick cushion of his stomach. He told this agent what Cipher Pol stood for while shredding the unfortunate's kidney. He told this agent what CP9 stood for while grinding the bones in his arms and legs to powder.

Just before the agent could take a last final gurgling rasp of air, Lucci stared at him evenly. "You will never be as good." The unspoken name rang thickly in the air, and Fukorou had his hands firmly pinching his zippered mouth shut.

Lucci tossed the lump of flesh aside and inspected his clean fingers.

The Director tried taking another jab at reason. "Of course they're not strong enough if you're trying to _kill_ them! If it was with Kaku, it would have just been sparring! You wouldn't have tried to kill him! That's why he didn't die like all these other idiots!"

Lucci's flat smile said otherwise.

mmm

CP9 agents had no graves. They weren't even meant to exist.

So Lucci had dinner that night with Hattori eating out of a dish situated next to a baseball cat.

Lucci picked up the cap, fabric yielding to his tightening grip. "Such a waste." He ripped it to ribbons and tossed it aside.

mmm

Califa knows that it isn't because Lucci had opened up to Kaku.

Lucci is like a smooth, shiny, frictionless surface, reflecting what he was ordered to reflect, shifting the light on his surface to shine the various thousands of masks that the World Government demanded of them. Nothing to grip onto, nothing to clench and hold – just a flat empty space filled with missions and the satisfying smell of blood in the name of justice.

Kaku had happened to bump so hard into Lucci that maybe he had a caused a chip, a crack, a weakening almost non-existent but there.

Califa watches when Lucci goes on the next mission alone. And then the next, and the next.

They were CP9; each of them was expected to be able to work together and as well as independently. Tools were useless if they needed to depend on something else.

She was strong – she knew that, but that didn't stop the tendril of fear that uncurled within her when she stared into Lucci's eyes. Eyes that no longer reflected the vision of a cheeky smile, long nose, baseball cap.

Califa knows that it isn't because Lucci had opened up to Kaku.

But maybe Kaku had closed over him.

mmm

They face each other in the glinting firelight, and Kaku is smiling because he knows exactly what the expression on Zoro's face means.

Zoro draws his swords (all three of them), and secures the bandana around his forehead.

Then he attacks.

When his blade edges along skin – so close, so close – he is hit with the fleeting memory of firm muscle and tight hot wet heat tasting sucking biting – and he pulls back.

He hadn't minded one too many drinking sessions with the CP9 agent – after all, Kaku has said that he wasn't on a mission after them. And that was all that mattered for the moment.

Kaku has a faint smile on his lips, _that bastard_, and Zoro narrows his eyes.

There is a faint regret, maybe, that lingers in his fellow swordsman's eyes but he can't be sure.

"Greatest Swordsman… I am honoured." Kaku stated that simply, quietly, with the air of someone delivering the everyday newspaper.

"Why?" Zoro's voice is scrubbed raw at the sight of the Pirate King with a rapidly fading smile, a Rankyaku right between the ribs into one of his lungs.

Kaku nods, as if confirming his decision with himself. "I have been ordered to delay the Pirate King's returning armada from the New World, but not cause any permanent damage."

"You could have just told us to slow down." Zoro is confused; it was a simple enough request.

Kaku shakes his head – the Strawhats are not like the other pirates, he knows that so clearly, but he cannot afford to treat them otherwise.

"Sometimes it's hard to remember that you are pirates, all things considered." Kaku tugs the front of his baseball cap down over his eyes, shading the sudden glimmer that he feels flaring up in his eyes.

The trees are ablaze around them – attacking the village had definitely distracted the Strawhats enough for him to give the Pirate King a blow, and now he has to face the Greatest Swordsman in the world.

A swordsman, who for the past few years, had provided comfortable company in drinking, in sparring, in bed, in a lot more ways that Kaku had thought he had to offer.

Bumping into the lost and confused swordsman had led to all of this, this odd jumbled friendship that Kaku never considered to be real – it was just convenient to have because it made it easier to gather data on the pirates that were flocking to the Pirate King's side.

But he knows that each and every one of the Strawhats hold all their friendships dear, and it was with a Lucci-like flicker of self-satisfaction when he saw the hurt etched in the stiffened stance, the bowed shoulders, head turned away.

He raises his swords, he is a CP9 agent and he was not allowed doubt, so it was with certainty in which he faced a man whom he knew he could not defeat, a man whom he had laughed with, a man who would kill him for hurting his Captain.

He didn't mind this death at all.

Kaku feels all three blades dive into him, feels the slow wash of vanishing consciousness, and wonders if he should have said goodbye.

Before he closes his eyes, he thinks he sees a pigeon with a tie flying by, flitting into the shadows, but there is no more time for regret.

mmm

"You are not to kill him." The Director is firm, but he keeps his eyes locked somewhere over Lucci's shoulder (the one without Hattori).

The new agent is young (not as young as Kaku had been when he had first joined, the thought flickers roughly in the remaining CP9 agents' heads), and this time, there is potential in tightly wound muscles, and an expression that does not lower its guard even in the face of its new comrades.

"Hullo." The newcomer speaks with an accent that is unfamiliar in the Blues, but Lucci could care less. He scans the boy over once with a sweeping eye and leaves the room.

There is silence, and then Fukurou hesitantly unzips his mouth. "Welcome, chapapa!"

The newcomer flashes them a smile and adjusts the baseball cap on his head.


End file.
